


Heady in the Air

by CaramelShadows



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Smoking, Smoking Kink, Strip Wicked Grace, Wicked Grace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-25 20:22:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12043572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaramelShadows/pseuds/CaramelShadows
Summary: “Are we friends, then?” Josephine managed to say, in as arch and coy a tone as any society matron could wish a girl to muster at a welcomed but improper familiarity.





	Heady in the Air

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamkist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamkist/gifts).



Josephine eyed the long cigarette as Isabela rolled it. There was printing on the paper.

“Are you wrapping your tobacco in copies of the Chant?”

Isabela laughed. “Good idea. No, Varric had a print run of Swords & Shields come out riddled with errors - some green typesetter got his ass handed to him for it. He was going to pulp the books, but I told him I’d take a few off of his hands.” She smirked. “I like wrapping my lips around smut.”

Josie swallowed, her eyes catching inevitably on those full lips, which continued to smirk as Isabela lifted the cigarette to them and touched the end with a spill lit casually off of the nearest lamp. She dragged in a long breath, then exhaled a cloud of smoke, rich and dark and sweet.

Josie wanted to chase the taste of that smoke back to Isabela’s lips. She dragged her gaze away from them with an effort and attempted to look at her eyes, which weren’t really less appealing. They glittered wickedly, and then the pirate had the temerity to _wink_ at her. Clearly she was fully aware of the... effect she was having on Josephine.

Josephine, however, refused to be seduced by a single pull on a cigarette - even from such astoundingly beautiful lips - and so she folded her hands neatly in front of her, dragging her eyes away to look at the walls. There was very little else to look at in the cabin of the _Embrium_ , aside from Isabela, but she could at least manage a pretense of a lack of panting lust.

Even though she could _feel_ the pirate’s smug grin from across the table. Yes, Isabela knew exactly what she was doing.

There was a thump as Isabela kicked her feet in those distractingly tall boots up onto the table. “Care for a game of Wicked Grace, Ambassador?”

Josephine let herself turn back to Isabela, because it was rude not to look at people when they were speaking to you. “I suppose so,” she said demurely. “Though really it isn’t proper to gamble.”

Isabela laughed outright and gestured at her with the cigarette. “Do people fall for that? Oh, it’s so improper, I shouldn’t, but if you insist? I know Antivans, Ambassador, you learn to gamble before you learn to walk.”

She dropped the demure smile and allowed herself to smirk back at Isabela. “Most people do not see an Antivan, Admiral, they see a pretty woman who clearly has no head for anything beyond her appearance and perhaps a collection of poetry.”

Isabela grinned, with a predatory glint that made Josephine glad she was sitting down. “Much as I love my title, my friends call me Isabela.”

“Are we friends, then?” Josephine managed to say, in as arch and coy a tone as any society matron could wish a girl to muster at a welcomed but improper familiarity.

Isabela’s smile widened. “Oh, I think you’d like to be.”

Josephine smiled, wishing she had a fan to flick open. “Then you must call me Josephine, Isabela, if we are to be friends. Have you a deck of cards?”

Isabela reached into her tunic between her breasts to fish out a deck, and Josephine had to close her eyes for a moment. It had been a long time since she had been so relentlessly seduced - and clearly with forethought.

But she was an Antivan, and the game was half the fun of the winning, so she produced a small pouch of copper coins from her belt and set it on the table. “Low stakes,” she murmured. “I am sure I could not match the wealth of a pirate queen.”

Isabela flicked her hat up a little farther out of her face. “Of course,” she said with a smirk. “I wouldn’t want you on the hook for a larger bet than you could cover.” She perched her cigarette in the corner of her mouth and shuffled the deck.

Josephine was torn between watching Isabela’s fingers dance and watching the cigarette bob in place, and in glancing between the two somehow ended up fixed on the pirate’s generous cleavage. She looked back up hastily, but Isabela was smirking at her again, and she blushed a little. She had not meant to be _quite_ so obvious.

Isabela dealt, her fingers flicking mesmerizingly, and in moments they both had full hands of cards.

The game went swiftly. Josephine began by carefully losing enough to look incompetent, and winning enough for it to look like beginner’s luck on those hands where it mattered, taking silver coins and golden rings from the pile in front of Isabela as the pirate smoked through to the end of her cigarette and started another.

When Isabela’s stakes had nearly run out, she grinned again. “It looks like I’ll have to add something to the pot. How about clothes?”

Josephine laughed, knowing exactly where the game was going, and glorying in the dance. “Of course. I think I should like to wear your hat.”

Isabela pretended to look offended, but she lost the rest of her gold and then her hat. Josephine set it carefully atop her braids and smiled at Isabela from under the nodding ostrich plumes.

Isabela smiled back, but her eyes were hungry. “Looks good on you, Ambassador.”

Josephine tittered prettily. “Josephine, remember. We cannot play such a game of cards and not be friends.”

“Of course, Josephine.”

The game continued, and Isabela began to win far more than was practically possible. She was cheating, of course, but she was a pirate, and Josephine had expected it - welcomed it. It was part of the steps of the dance, and so she bet too heavily and lost, until the pile of coins in front of her had all moved across the table, and she lost a hand and widened her eyes in carefully aristocratic shock.

“Oh, dear,” she fretted. “I suppose I will have to give you back this lovely hat, now. You will have to tell me where you bought it, you know. I think I would like one of my own.”

“There’s a lovely little shop in Val Chevin,” Isabela said, settling her hat back onto her head and taking another drag on her current cigarette. The air was heavy and fragrant, and Josephine felt dizzy with it. “I could show you around, if you like.”

Josephine smiled at her, wishing again for a fan to flirt with. “I would, I think. I am sure such a personage as yourself knows all of the most _interesting_ places.”

Isabela grinned as she shuffled, and they started another hand.

Josephine lost, as she had expected to. She had actually drawn quite well that hand, but Isabela had drawn impossibly well, and beat her easily.

Josephine looked down at herself fretfully. “I do not have a hat, I’m afraid. Perhaps my sash?”

“Lovely silk, that,” Isabela said, and nodded.

Josephine unpinned it and handed it over, and Isabela draped it over her shoulder, the gold silk spilling down over her breasts and shimmering in the lamplight.

They played on, and Josephine continued to lose. Her shoes, then her stockings. Her overskirt and vest. The wrappings on her sleeves, so the silk billowed loose around her wrists when she moved.

One hand she won, just to see what Isabela would do, and instead of handing her back her blouse, Isabela untied her own blue sash and handed it over.

Josephine smiled, and tied it lightly over her chemise and corsets.

Isabela’s last cigarette had gone to nothing a few hands before, and she paused to roll another. Josephine watched her fingers, and thought that perhaps it was time for a new pass of the dance. Isabela looked veiled in finest silk from the haze of smoke that filled the room, and Josephine felt giddy and hungry with the heady scent.

“I think I should like to try the smoke closer to the source,” she said, recklessly.

Isabela glanced up, surprised for a moment before her gaze shifted to predatory. “I’m sure I can oblige a friend with a taste,” she purred.

Josephine batted her eyelashes and contrived to look as innocent and demure as a flushing woman in her underthings possibly could. “I have never smoked before. I am not sure I could.”

Isabela’s smile stretched as slow and sharp as a shark's. “I think I can get you past that.”

Her tongue flicked out to seal the cigarette into its tight tube, and she lit it as she had the others, exhaling that first drag into another fragrant plume. She took another long drag, then leaned across the table and pressed her lips to Josephine’s.

Josephine parted her lips in what passed for surprise, and inhaled as Isabela breathed a lungful of smoke into her. She thought, dizzily, that she could not imagine a more intimate act than sharing breath.

She savored the lungful for a long moment, then exhaled the thin cloud of smoke back into the air. She was sure she should say something else coquettish, but her wits seemed to have deserted her.

Her speechless state did not seem to be a barrier, as Isabela took another long drag from the cigarette and pressed her mouth to Josephine’s again. Josephine breathed in, tasting the smoke and tasting Isabela, and found her hands reaching to catch at Isabela’s tunic to hold herself up.

Isabela finished exhaling and pulled back a little, chuckling low and rough. “A little eager, are you, Josephine?” Her voice caressed Josephine’s name so intimately that she could feel it like fingers down her spine, and she shivered despite the warmth of the room.

She swallowed, trying to muster a response, but it was hard to think.

Isabela took another drag on the cigarette and blew a smoke ring out to join the haze in the room. “Is there something you’d like, sunshine?”

Josephine laughed a little breathlessly. “Sunshine?”

“All gold silk and warm smiles,” Isabela said. Josephine blushed, and Isabela lifted her free hand to run her fingers over her cheek. “Is there something you’d like?” She cast a significant glance down to where Josephine’s hands were still tangled in the laces of her tunic. “I could take that off.”

Josephine let go hastily, though it took her several moments to fumble her fingers out of the laces. “I beg your pardon.”

Isabela smiled that shark’s grin again. “I can think of _much_ more interesting things that you could beg for than my pardon.”

Josephine flushed again. “It is terribly warm in here,” she said helplessly.

“I can help you with that,” Isabela said, sliding her fingers down Josephine’s neck to pluck at the knots of her corset.

Josephine’s face was flaming, but Isabela’s attentions to her corset laces were more than welcome. She could untie it more quickly herself, of course, but that would lose the fun of Isabela undressing her, those clever fingers running up and down the span of her corset, loosening the laces until the garment hung loose around Josephine’s waist.

Josephine glanced down at it, then back up through her eyelashes. “This does seem to be in the way, does it not?” She pulled it up over her head and discarded it on the bench next to her, leaving her upper body clad only in the creased silk of her chemise.

Isabela’s grin was sharp and beautiful as she took in the new view, but Josephine pouted at her. “Now, this is hardly fair. You are piled in all my things, you must be terribly warm. Do let me help you as well.”

Isabela chuckled, a low sound that went straight to the pit of Josephine’s stomach. “You’re right, Sunshine. All these silks you wrap yourself up in are very warm.”

“One needs the layers, in Skyhold,” Josephine said somewhat breathlessly, as she unwound her sash from Isabela’s waist. “But they are too much in this heat we are having. I should have brought better clothes for the weather with me.”

“I could lend you some, if you like,” Isabela murmured, watching Josephine tug her silk skirt up over Isabela’s head. “I’ve got lots of clothes that aren’t stifling in the heat.”

Josephine glanced between her own chest and Isabela’s. “I am not sure your clothing would fit me.”

“I think that might look even better, don’t you? There are laces to adjust, after all. You can just leave them loose,” Isabela purred.

Josephine closed her eyes for a moment, imagining herself clad in gaping scraps of fabric, and flushed.


End file.
